ZACK!
After what seemed an eternity wandering through the choking shadows, his hand found something. Had he remained still, as in lives past, he would already have perished. But now, he encountered something: a long, slender arc of wood at the height of his chest, slick with a scorching, slimy film. In the few places where dryness persisted, he felt the prick of minuscule thorns, piercing the skin of his palm.
He felt pain. He felt fire. He felt revulsion.
And yet, he was grateful. For the first time, he had not been undone. He was weary of this endless cycle of death and rebirth, a wretched loop void of purpose or progress.
The rivulet of blood that trickled from the wound traced the length of the gnarled branch, weaving between the thorns with the grace of a serpent, as though possessed of a mind and will all its own. The path ahead promised agony—but not death. No weapon could forge a way through it. Even his sacred blade became useless. His few attempts to hew a passage had failed utterly.
Had he still possessed his eyes, he might have seen how insubstantial the vegetation truly was, how it eluded steel yet tore flesh without resistance. And so he resorted to his own strength, tearing at the thorn-choked undergrowth with raw hands, mindful to bleed just enough that the ground might chart his course—his lifeblood painting a crude map for a visionless soul. The sacred essence of the blinded angel had become his compass, his cartographer, and his curse.
Within the first moments, his flesh was marred by a thousand lacerations. Arms, legs, hands, and feet were consumed by wounds; some so deep they brushed against bone and organ, rending his once-pure raiment with indifference. No scream could do justice to the agony, no tears could dilute the searing torment, worsened by a heat that clung to the wounds like molten iron.
The woman's voice, ethereal and tremulous, still echoed in the distance, elusive and ungraspable, never reached on the first attempt. More feathers fell from his broken wings, lost to the steady drain of blood. Others were shed when he turned back, his resolve shattered, deluded by the hope that the Creator would reward such sacrificial suffering. But the path was no place for redemption—only endurance and pain.
In time, rivers of blood carved borders along his path, and the weeping of the unseen woman grew louder, more desperate. That was the destination, then. But who awaited him there? The thorned bushes began to writhe as though awakened, their limbs coiling around his throat and limbs, not only to halt his advance but to strangle the very essence from his veins, sealing the wounds, denying the blood its freedom.
Finally, when the fiftieth feather had fallen, the son of the Creator heard her cry out at last:
"No! Stay away from me! I want nothing more from anyone! There is only suffering—only endless pain!"
Each time she voiced such despair, the thorned branches twisted tighter, their thorns snapping, weaving into walls of anguish and cruelty. But the angel no longer fled. He pressed forward, convinced that behind the pain and fury lay some revelation—perhaps a reward, or even the Creator himself, cloaked in torment.
"Leave me be! You cannot help me! You will not help me!"
Yet his blood, shed with sacred purpose, tainted the soil, and in so doing, it burned away the will of the briars. The plants recoiled, as if repulsed by something divine they could not consume. And so the blind warrior emerged from the thorned gauntlet, his trial finally conquered. At once, the screams ceased.
He raised his hands before his face, filtering the acrid air through broken fingers. Streams of blood still coursed down his limbs, soaking the remnants of his robes. Only his head remained untouched. Locks of hair had been sacrificed along the way, claimed by the cruel underbrush. At the heart of a vast, barren clearing—bereft of all flora—there was, at last, a presence. A figure. But she did not speak. She did not reveal herself as before. She remained silent. The only companion left to guide the blind angel was his sword. With every feather lost, it had returned to him, its hilt warm in his right hand—as if forged anew with each step closer to revelation.
Until this moment, he had been unable to unseal his eyes. Nor had he pierced the thorns that sought to chain him. He lowered the tip of his blade until it kissed the ground, resting it there as one might a sacred staff, drawing quiet guidance from the earth beneath his feet. No resistance met him—not a stone, not a thorn, not even the faintest tremor. Only the yielding breath of ancient sand, harmless and still.
The angel's fingers descended gently, as if the very touch of the soil whispered welcome, or urged them to vanish into its silence.
With measured steps, he moved onward, skimming the subtle dunes that fractured the desolate terrain, until the sword's point grazed something just above the surface.
He traced its boundary in solemn patience, discovering that it gradually rose — a form, equal in height to the winged wanderer, now loomed before him.
It possessed no limbs, no discernible face, no markers of flesh or bone. It was but a sort of cloak—seafoam green in color—paling into ghostly white as the gaze climbed toward what might have been a head. Without warning, the blade slipped from the angel's grasp, as though it no longer held meaning. He reached forward, unflinching, and placed his blood-washed hands upon the figure's featureless veil.
It did not answer.
And yet, his movements bore the weight of memory, as though some forgotten instinct guided him through a ritual long buried by time. The blood, darker now, crimson verging on rust, rather than the violet of his earlier deaths, began to seep into the figure's folds. As a consequence, the form stirred and changed. Slowly, it split into two segments — an upper and a lower — bound by a single broad stalk.
Gone were the earlier screams that had torn the sky to pieces.
In their place rose a different dissonance: the wet, repulsive sound of innards swelling and colliding, as though the shape were birthing itself anew from within.
But it was not gore that emerged.
Instead, smooth, flowing lines wove through the aberration, giving it the semblance of a new form — elegant, elusive, and yet unfinished.
No eyes.
No mouth.
No hair or hands.
Still, when the blind angel pressed harder, his grip becoming purposeful, two swellings appeared upon the crest of the figure.
From these, arms bloomed — long, languid, matching his own — and they reached forward, tentatively, until they found his face.
Their fingers traced upward, slow and reverent... until:
"You... you too... No... it cannot be..."
He understood nothing. Or rather, he was still lost in that strange, unspoken curiosity, a compulsion he had not even known had taken root within him. And then, he felt her fingers brush the stitching over his sealed eyes. For her, it was all the confirmation she needed. Her voice emerged now, unmistakably that of a woman—worn, burdened, and shrouded in sorrow.
"You've lost the light of God... You are defiled... as I am."
And it was true: upon her own brow lay a scar—deep, cruel, ancient—concealing a lone eye like a forgotten jewel buried in shame. A treasure, cursed by the heavens.
"We were forsaken... He has cast us aside... And if not you, then who will save me? The others... they hurt me! Lied to me, promised kindness, but only left wounds! I must defend myself... from their claws... Do you understand? Can you even understand what I mean?!"
He could not answer. He only remained, hands moving, tender yet firm, upon the ridged scar.
"I cannot do this alone," she wept. "My flesh betrays me — too slick to unravel what binds me. But you... You are not like them. You do not flinch. You reached me — even as I rejected you."
And then the storm within her broke. Pain streamed, ancient and bitter.
"Why... why are you helping me?"
He did not falter. His gestures carried neither hesitation nor doubt. With steadfast grace, he continued to caress the wounded crown of her silence.
"No... I won't... I can't... It never worked before — not with the others. Why should you be different?! I don't want anyone near me anymore!"
She cast him aside. His fall was cradled by the soft weight of feathered arms. Yet resolve burned too fiercely within him to allow surrender—not now, not at the edge of the abyss they had come so far to reach. And so he rose. His fingers, bloodstained and trembling, seized the warped hands at the terminus of the figure before him—hands shaped by something not wholly mortal.
She wept. She did not wish to witness what the angel was now preparing to do. And yet, despite the dread that coiled around her thoughts, she could not comprehend how such gestures, such sacred rituals, came to him as though etched into the marrow of his bones. Perhaps it was indeed the hand of the Creator that stirred within him—distant, but undeniable.
"Wrong..."
The thorns that had once shielded her withered in silence. The weeping ceased, not because sorrow had fled, but because resistance had. She yielded, at last, to the will of the angel. Another act, she believed, that would end only in hollow ruin and lamentation.
But there were no more cries, no more pleading.
They raised their right hands in solemn unison, bringing them to the level of their eyes. Though sight eluded them, they felt the presence. Not with vision, but with the ancient sense that hums in the blood when fate draws near.
The angel's fingers closed around the crude stitches that sealed her single eyelid. Opposite him, her hand found the edges of a damned scar. They were about to begin...
The disciples were prepared. Each sat in their appointed place, unmoving, their backs straight as statues wrought of stone. The chamber, swept and sanctified that morning, bore no trace of dust nor decay. Three rectangular panes of pale light clung to the walls, mirroring the class's narrow windows, casting the room in a spectral interplay of black and white. Yet amid such order, one truth remained: their faces lay cloaked in utter shadow. Murmurs and indistinct laughter wandered through the air, shapeless and low, until the door opened. And with it, silence came like a god. The professor entered from the rear of the hall—an old figure wrapped in weary dignity—his steps slow, deliberate, as he drifted among the wooden rows. Not a word was spoken as he passed. The moment he ascended the singular step to the platform, it emerged: a solitary hue burst forth, replicated twenty-sevenfold, like tongues of living fire licking at the stillness. They were robed in the scarlet vestments of the Creator Himself, now an ancient instructor, hollowed by time. He stared upon them—his chosen twenty-seven—and the color struck him as if he had seen twenty-seven phantoms in unison. His lips parted, breath held hostage by awe and dread. Never had he foreseen this. He swallowed. His hand reached for the satchel of old leather.
The bell had long since rung. Now, at last, the lesson could begin.
There was but one tome within his bag. Yet that book was sufficient to teach until the final collapse of all creation. He wiped his glasses clean with trembling fingers and opened to a page not chosen by him, but by fate. Then, lifting his gaze to meet all twenty-seven pairs of unseen eyes, he cleared his throat and spoke:
"The envy… is a monster… with green eyes."
And so were the eyes of the angel.
For when the woman tore the seal upon his sight, what lay was not mere vision, but revelation. A vast prairie encircled a lone oak at its center, viewed from above like a god gazing upon his own sorrow. Magmatic veins pulsed at the outer reaches, while crimson blood poured from the angel's shattered eyes.
Despair cursed his gaze. Wisps of gray hair veiled his face, further darkening the omen he had become. Across from him stood she, his counterpart, her form graced with femininity, now impaled by the horror radiating from beneath his scarred brow.
And yet, her lone eye was not one of terror, but tragedy. The iris held a pale blue, nearly indistinguishable from the whites that framed it. Encircling it was a golden crown, its branches short and radiant, reaching inward toward her sky-hued pupil like sunrays drawn to eclipse. That sorrow-stained vision seeped into her soul, threatening to drown her innocence.
But something inexplicable stirred within her: compassion.
For the first time, she too beheld the "world" through another's anguish. Around them, fiery branches, putrid and incandescent, writhed and twisted, repelling all who dared to come near. Screams. Wails. None had ever reached them. Light brown thickets surrounded them, roots like bars of a prison forged by grief. She watched him with growing pity, her heart pierced by his agony. He, in turn, turned his gaze to the thorned forest, to the bloody path he had unknowingly carved with his steps. He came to know the shape of the blood. He recognized the cruel form of the plant-wrought barrier that exhaled eternal heat.
And then, as if by miracle, he distinguished the first colors. Memory, long sealed, stirred. Joy—wild and unmeasured—surged within him. But it was the form of the other that truly changed him. He was amazed. The figure before him bore no true resemblance to him, save for its slenderness, its silhouette faintly mirroring his own. He stepped forward, as if to understand, to measure, to compare. The woman, silent and still, watched—speechless, breathless.
Then—horror.
He saw himself: emaciated, soaked in blood, twisted beyond recognition. A grotesque relic of torment. The most vile sight he had ever beheld. He wanted to be whole. To be warm. To burn with emotion as she did—pure and alive.
And so, without warning, he leapt. His form, all hunger and rage, lunged toward her, hands outstretched to tear from her the—
SPLASH!
"Ποτέ θα σκοντάψουμε, γιατί η σοφία ξεφεύγει από εκείνους που πατούν το μονοπάτι της τρέλας..."
(Ever shall we stumble, for wisdom eludes those who tread the path of folly...)